Mamuska!

Time Out says

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Time Out says

A Polish ‘milk’ bar (‘bar mleczny’) seems ideally suited to the Elephant & Castle shopping centre. More transport caff than a haven of Polish home cooking, Mamuska! offers filling fare, fast and at bargain prices. Spacious, clean and family-friendly, it’s unsurprisingly popular with an eclectic clientele.

Sadly, the food isn’t exactly homely. We weren’t looking for frills, and happily accepted the dense dough of the pierogi, and the simple garnish of long-cooked bacon lardons, as ‘filling a gap’. If the pork filling of the meat dumplings was super-minced, and tasted recooked – well, that’s the way you economise and fill an empty stomach. Decent bottled beer (Zywiec, Zubr and the like) accompanied the starters nicely. Mains might have been more welcome were we still ravenous; as it was, kielbasa and goulash continued to fill without exciting.

Potato dishes (mash, salad and pancakes) seemed stolid, and the ‘dish of the day’, a ‘tenderised pork’ escalope, proved so dry and chewy it defeated our best efforts. A mushroom sauce had little fungi flavour, and we wondered if a packet mix had come into play; chocolate cheesecake caused similar musings. Still, there’s no arguing with the friendliness, humour, cleanliness and wallet-friendly pricing.

don't know why this place gets such good reviews. first time - last time.

first it's a canteen - not a restaurant! You get plastic trays and a miserable person to deal with. I can usually get a laugh or smile from most people but FAIL at this place. Food was ok-ish. All the drinks un-drinkably sweet. Water was warm and ice cubes clearly rationed. Don't bother!

This is a no frills sort of place that serves nice, big, hearty home cooked meals for a fiver a dish. The potato pancakes with goulash or mushroom sauce is rich, yummy and filling. It is all stodgy but that's home cooking for you - everything comes with a side of veg, potato and sourkraut. If you want a lighter bite then go elsewhere. This place will always be on my go to list.

Absolutely fantastic, no-nonsense place. The food is great, the prices are jaw dropping and the whole idea just works like a charm. I've been there twice and each time I was amazed. The portions are generous, the hot chocolate thick and the staff extremely friendly.

I have recently moved to Elephant and Castle and have been to Mamuska twice now, it's well worth every penny for what you get! The atmosphere is lovely and the staff are friendly and helpful especially the manager everyone always seems like they're having a really good time here. :)

Mamuska's food is the best value for money I've found in London, having lived here six years. You pay at the counter when you order and then collect your meal on a tray, which means there's no tip for table service - so you can leave feeling full having only spent five pounds, or even three pounds if you get one of the wholesome soups. The portions are very generous. The beetroot soup in a glass is really delicious and great to have with pierogi. I live in Elephant & Castle and so virtually live in Mamuska and I can't recommend it enough. I don't know how it makes money because it's such an amazing deal and it deserves a lot of customers. A ten pin bowling alley and Mamuska are both inside the shopping centre and together make a great, cheap night out - Mamuska is open unbelievably late every day too. By the way the character of the 60s shopping centre is an experience in itself if you've never been in, and the tube and bus stops are right next to it.

Bardzo smaczny - Absolutely delicious. On a 5 day visit to London we stayed in the waterloo area and kept returning to Mamuska. Being of Polish descent the food reminded me of my wife's mom's cooking (although she cooked kosher…:-)

My mother's Polish so I've grown up on Polish home cooked food. I took my parents there for a treat (Not long out of uni, so I'm a bit of a cheap skate!). The food was tasty, well portioned and cheap for London. I felt transported back to Poland and obliged to make an effort and speak Polish.
I've just came back from a two week trip from Wroclaw, a Polish city I've never visited before and loved everything about it. It's got such a cool arty vibe and it's got some great drinking/milk bars. The trip turned in to a mass pig out and brought back comforting memories.
I plan to go to Mamuska again very soon and reminisce over the time spend in Wroclaw with an English girl I met out there. Bring on the pierogi!

We thought we should respond to Hanna's review. She is absolutely correct that there is an error on the menu, and that reprinting is very costly. (By the way, we are changing over to a new winter menu in 2 weeks!) Hanna should have been warned when ordering that the fruit pierogi come as a set of four, not five like the other pierogi. Unfortunately we had a new cashier working and she forgot. However, when we did try to explain and suggest some sort of solution, Hanna's boyfriend kept interupting and just got more angry. He did not give us a chance to make good. They also emptied the ketchup and mustard onto their otherwise-empty plates, so I guess between the cost of the condiments and the bad review, this group of people somehow feel better. I only wish they had given us a chance to offer a solution, but these customers seemed to be set for a fight! At £5 a main course of freshly cooked food, what we are doing is not easy. And when we get it wrong, we do offer refunds. But this time, we never got the chance. We only hope that readers will read our response as well as the review. Smacnego! Ian at Mamuśka!

The food is ok but the service is horrible. I asked if I could get 5 fruit dumplings for 3 pounds (in the menu as starter: 1/2 pierogi- normally you get 10 dumplings for a fiver) and the lady said: of course! Two other friends I was with got their food and my dumplings arrived shortly after. The only thing was, there were only 4 instead of 5. I went back to the counter, the lady apologized and gave my plate back to the kitchen staff. Then she got it back and tried to explain that there is an error in the menu and you actually only get 4 dumplings if you choose the ones with a fruit filing. I was really disappointed and regretted not taking 10, as the 4 I got were really small. I got back to the table. My boyfriend decided to speak to the manager about our complaint. The manager said that most of the customers understood that when you take fruit dumplings you only get 4 even though the menu said 5. (pure logic! fruit are more expensive than meat, said the manager). Also he said that printing menus is expensive, so they didn't manage to correct the error yet. Maybe they should then remove the menus and just write the menu on a big board? Or train their staff properly? Was not giving me one dumpling worth losing at least 3 customers? Even though the portions were small, the food was value for money. Such a shame that the customer service and the overall management of the place is so poor.

Perhaps ordering a bowl of kapusniak on such a hot day was a mistake, but it was worth the embarrassing sweatiness that ensued! Big bowl of sweet cabbage soup with some sausage & potato in it, served with Polish bread. Absolutely fab. I overordered by getting some minced pork pierogi as well. Very tasty though. Soup & pierogi to share would have been more than enough. Will definitely go back. Maybe when it's less oppressively hot!